Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

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'We Can't Tolerate This Anymore,' Obama Says













President Barack Obama said at an interfaith prayer service in this mourning community this evening that the country is "left with some hard questions" if it is to curb a rising trend in gun violence, such as the shooting spree Friday at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School.


After consoling victims' families in classrooms at Newtown High School, the president said he would do everything in his power to "engage" a dialogue with Americans, including law enforcement and mental health professionals, because "we can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them we must change."






Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images











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The president was not specific about what he thought would be necessary and did not even use the word "gun" in his remarks, but his speech was widely perceived as prelude to a call for more regulations and restrictions on the availability of firearms.


The grieving small town hosted the memorial service this evening as the the nation pieces together the circumstances that led to a gunman taking 26 lives Friday at the community's Sandy Hook Elementary School, most first graders.


"Someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside your body all of the time, walking around," he said, speaking of the joys and fears of raising children.


"So it comes as a shock at a certain point when you realize no matter how much you love these kids you can't do it by yourself," he continued. "That this job of protecting kids and teaching them well is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, with the help of a community, and the help of a nation."


CLICK HERE for Full Coverage of the Tragedy at Sandy Hook






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Pakistan police battle militants after deadly airport raid






PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Six people were killed on Sunday as police and troops battled militants armed with automatic weapons, grenades and mortars in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar, a day after a deadly Taliban raid on the city's airport.

Fierce firing broke out after police acting on an intelligence report stormed a building near the airport, where a suicide and rocket attack on Saturday killed five civilians and the five attackers, and wounded 50 other people.

The assault late Saturday, claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, sparked prolonged gunfire and forced authorities to close the airport, a commercial hub and Pakistan Air Force (PAF) base in Peshawar on the edge of the tribal belt.

It was the second Islamist militant attack in four months on a military air base in nuclear-armed Pakistan. In August 11 people were killed when heavily-armed insurgents wearing suicide vests stormed a facility in the northwestern town of Kamra.

Police backed by troops launched a raid early Sunday on a building under construction near the airport following reports that five militants who fled after the airport attack had taken refuge there, according to provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

In the fierce shootout that followed, three militants and a policemen were killed, police said, while two other officers were wounded.

The clashes ended after six hours when the two remaining militants detonated their suicide vests inside the building, another senior police officer, Imtiaz Altaf, told AFP.

"All five militants are dead now and the area has been cleared," Altaf said.

"All of them were wearing suicide jackets. Three were killed in a shoot out with police, while two others blew themselves up in the building under construction."

A PAF statement said five attackers were killed on Saturday and no damage was done to air force personnel or equipment.

Dr Umar Ayub, chief of Khyber Teaching Hospital near the airport, said five civilians had also been killed and some 50 wounded.

"The base is in total control and normal operations have resumed. The security alert was also raised on other PAF air bases as well," the air force added.

Peshawar airport is a joint military-civilian facility. Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Pervez George said the passenger side had reopened after an 18-hour closure and there was no damage to the terminals.

The air force said Saturday's attackers used two vehicles loaded with explosives, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons. One vehicle was destroyed and the second badly damaged.

Security forces found three suicide jackets near one of the vehicles, it said.

"Security forces consisting of Pakistan Air Force and Army personnel who were on full alert, cordoned off the base and effectively repulsed the attack," the air force said.

Television pictures showed a vehicle with a smashed windscreen, another damaged car, bushes on fire and what appeared to be a large breach in a wall.

Five nearby houses were destroyed after rockets landed on them and several other houses developed cracks, while the bomb squad detonated five out of eight bombs found near the base after the attack.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location that the group would continue to target the airport.

"Our target was jet fighter plans and gunship helicopters and soon we will target them again," he said.

The armed forces have been waging a bloody campaign against the Taliban in the country's northwest in recent years and the militants frequently attack military targets.

Aside from the August attack on Kamra, in May 2011 it took 17 hours to quell an assault claimed by the Taliban on an air base in Karachi. The attack piled embarrassment on the armed forces just three weeks after US troops killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Pakistan says more than 35,000 people have been killed as a result of terrorism in the country since the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Its forces have for years been battling homegrown militants in the northwest.

- AFP/xq



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Karnataka concerned over Savitha, Jacintha deaths: Former CM

MANGALORE: The state government has taken due note of back to back deaths of two women of Karnataka origin abroad- Savitha Halappanavar and Jacintha Saldanha— and urged the centre to ensure that Indian citizens abroad get due protection, abroad said DV Sadananda Gowda, former chief minister.

Chief minister Jagadish Shettar has written letters to the PM and MEA due to the back to back deaths of two women of Karnataka origin abroad- Savitha Halappanavar and Jacintha Saldanha— and expressed state's concern over these deaths.

Sadananda Gowda, accompanied by members of Kaup assembly constituency unit of BJP met family members of Ben Barboza, Jacintha's husband at Shirva earlier in the day. "We consoled the bereaved family at their loss," Gowda told reporters here later. Describing the incident as tragic and one that should not have happened, Gowda said, "I handed over messages to the bereaved family on behalf of the chief minister Jagadish Shettar."

The CM has written letters to PM Manmohan Singh and minister of external affairs Salman Khurshid, expressing the state government's concerns over these two deaths, Gowda said adding that there is a sense of despondency among people of the state at these incidents.

"It has created a fear psychosis among people of the state about welfare of their friends and relatives abroad," he said hoping the Centre will take necessary steps to prevent recurrence of such events.

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

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School Safety Questioned After Conn. Shooting













Along with fire drills, schools have been conducting lockdown drills -- often known as active shooter drills -- since the Columbine massacre in 1999.


But safety officials do not agree yet on what teachers and students should do when a homicidal gunman invades their school.


At Sandy Hook Elementary School, teachers, staff and students had been drilled on how to handle such a situation.


"We practice it, and they knew what to do, and you just think about protecting the kids, and just doing the right thing," library clerk Mary Ann Jacob said.


She said had been drilled to send the kids in the library to a back closet between book shelves, a plan developed in advance.


"You have to have a certain amount of fire drills, and evacuation drills, and a certain amt of lockdown drills," she said. "Kids know the routine, and the teachers know the routine, and everyone has a spot in the room where they are supposed to go to."


School safety expert Ken Trump told ABC News that he thinks the Sandy Hook teachers did what they could to protect their students.


"It does sound as though the teachers did everything humanly possible, down to risking their lives, to protect the children in this Connecticut school," Trump said.


The school's principal and five other adults died in the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn.


"Teaching kids to lock down, securing your rooms, and, in some cases, teachers stepping forth to protect the children at the risk of their own lives, is something that we see occurring more and more over the years in school safety," Trump said.








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He and others particularly praised the actions of first grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, who locked her classroom door and barricaded herself and her 14 students in a locked bathroom.


Click here for more photos of the scene.


But former SWAT officer Greg Crane told ABC News that he thinks existing lockdown procedures aren't sufficient.


"What she [Roig] did was a fantastic move," said Crane, who founded a school safety program called ALICE, which stands for alert, lock down, inform, counter, evacuate.


"Was she taught that move? Did every teacher know to lock the door and also barricade it? If that's the case, why weren't other teachers taught that?" Crane asked.


Click here for live updates.


Most schools tell teachers to lock their doors and sit quietly until helps arrives, Crane said.


Typical are the procedures, obtained by ABCNews.com, outlined by a New Jersey school district that calls their drills "Lock Down Yellow."


Instructions to the students include:


"Go to the room nearest your location in the hallway.


"No one will be able to leave room for any reason.


"Silence must be maintained (Use of cell phones are not permitted).


"Make sure you are marked present.


"Do not leave the classroom until directed by PA System, telephone or by an administrator."


But Crane founded ALICE because he believed there was something wrong with the lock down-only policies in most schools.


"We've taught a generation of Americans to be passive and static and wait for police," said Crane, whose wife was an elementary school principal in Texas at the time of the Columbine attack.


"We don't recommend just locking a door because locked doors have been defeated before," Crane said. "Try to make yourself as hard a target as possible."


ALICE argues students and teachers should not be passive and that they should improvise. He even suggests they throw things are their attacker.






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A normally stoic president sheds tears over mass shooting of ‘our children’



“The majority of those who died today were children — beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old,” Obama said partway into a four-minute statement.

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Obama calls for solidarity after school massacre






WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Saturday called for Americans to "come together" to prevent tragedies like the school massacre that killed 20 young children and six adults, one of the worst mass shootings in US history.

"This weekend, Michelle and I are doing what I know every parent is doing -- holding our children as close as we can and reminding them how much we love them," said Obama, father of Sasha, 10, and Malia, 14.

"There are families in Connecticut who can't do that today. And they need all of us now," he added, in his weekly address.

Twenty-seven people, including the shooter, were killed on Friday morning at an elementary school in Connecticut. US media reported that a 28th victim, found at a residence in the town, was the shooter's mother.

"While nothing can take the place of a lost child or loved one, all of us can extend a hand to those in need -- to remind them that we are there for them; that we are praying for them; and that the love they felt for those they lost endures not just in their own memories, but also in their community, and their country," he continued.

"Every parent in America has a heart heavy with hurt," Obama said. On Friday, he fought tears in an emotional address about the tragic incident.

"We grieve for the families of those we lost. And we keep in our prayers the parents of those who survived. Because as blessed as they are to have their children home, they know that their child's innocence has been torn away far too early," the president said.

Obama said the tragedy was all too familiar, after similar deadly shootings at a shopping mall in Oregon, at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and at a movie theatre in Colorado earlier this year.

"Any of these neighbourhoods could be our own. So we have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this. Regardless of the politics," the president said, echoing his message from the day before.

Obama did not give details, but some US politicians called for a serious look at gun control laws, a subject which Obama, re-elected on November 6, did not tackle strongly in his first term.

- AFP/xq



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Aung San Suu Kyi praises Indian Air Force pilots

YANGON: Not treated well by her own military junta, pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi today praised Indian Air Force pilots for being "professional" and "sweet".

"I enjoyed my time in India thoroughly from beginning to end, particularly impressed by the Air Force Pilots who flew me back. They are the kind of professional military men I like to see," said the 67-year-old Suu Kyi who was placed under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years on different occasions.

She added: "They (IAF) are very very sweet. So very soldierly in the best kind of way, officers and gentlemen."

During her visit to India last month, Suu Kyi was flown in and out of Yagon by IAF pilots in military planes.

After a 40-minute meeting with Salman Khurshid, a beaming Burmese leader also so praised the kind of reception she received from the Indian government and Indian people during her visit.

"It is an experience I wish to repeat," she said.

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

Read More..